


Soul Handling, and Jumping into the Fire

by JayBarou



Series: Sound Soul [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Demon!AU, Demon!Tony, Loki Whump, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4772975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayBarou/pseuds/JayBarou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I have an army”<br/>“I have a horde of demons; shall we play risk with them?”<br/>Loki finds that Tony is a demon at an inconvenient moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soul Handling, and Jumping into the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Because I still don't understand what happened to the plot of the last demon!AU I wrote.

“I have an army.”

“I have a horde of demons; shall we play risk with them?” Stark's smirk was confident.

“What are you talking about now, human?” Loki observed closely his way of moving. If he wasn't in the middle of the worst possible situation he'd have been interested.

“I like it here." Stark poured a glass of some liquid and made a gesture to offer Loki a second one. "My tower, my city, my band of misfits; I have everything! But then you have to come and bring with you more than Earth’s Mightiest Heroes can handle and I have to forget about my reputation as Tony Stark. You couldn’t throw your hissy fit somewhere else, stay in Germany, no, you had to come to my lawn and make me use the big guns.”

“Your primitive guns won’t be enough.”

“My guns are in the hands of the least trustworthy bunch of demons you could imagine, because I made them, I brought to the surface every selfish desire and I am about to tell them that their wildest dream is to destroy you and your army. You can’t imagine how powerful I made them.” Stark strutted very close to Loki; unwisely close.

“And they are at your command?”

“Every single one.”

“Good.”

Loki used his scepter on Stark and it should have worked! Thanos said it would work, but the second and the third time the scepter failed too. Loki couldn’t fail, not like this, not before the portal could let enough in, not before there was a show of lights that could convince Thanos of his loyalty. It had to look like an even fight, had to look like the humans would lose.

Whatever the human said next didn’t register with Loki, who could only think in Thanos’ victory and in the new adversary that Stark had turned out to be. Loki almost snarled like an animal when he picked Stark by the neck and threw him out of the window. The voice in his head telling him to follow Thanos’ plan calmed down with the human’s demise.

He couldn’t help walking to the edge; both his curiosity and the compulsion wanted to check if the human was actually dead. Before he reached the broken glass, a shape much bigger than the human blocked the light. Stark glided and landed gracefully in front of Loki, who took a few preventive steps backwards.

“You know?” He strutted to Loki, letting leathery wings drag on the floor like a cape. “I like your style, that ‘I’ll enucleate you if you don’t kneel’ that you pull while walking around like you own something.” Stark’s T-shirt was in tatters; Loki could imagine that the wings were the cause. “It is cute that you think you understand something, but above everything else, I can't forget that you killed my Coulson.”

No, Loki didn’t know who he meant, but he had to get rid of Stark, and beheading was usually more effective than throwing someone with wings from a building, so he sent a few blasts to him. Once he was distracted Loki lunged forward with the edge of the scepter, but Stark was quick. Loki threw his most powerful blasts, but Stark simply… absorbed them. It didn’t make sense, because Thor’s lightning was electricity; easy to direct with a wire, but Loki’s blasts were concentrated Seidr. What manner of creature was Stark if he wasn’t human?

“You know what Coulson’s death means?”

Loki’s last blast was slightly off, so it made a crater on the ground and sent rubble everywhere. Loki protected his eyes for a second. Stark had disappeared. Loki turned in every direction, but this was not his territory, Stark could be hiding anywhere. He hadn’t dropped his guard when there was a teasing voice by his ear.

“It means there is space for a new toy in my collection.”

A cold touch in the base of his skull came as fast as the voice. The sharp intrusion, the precise but short-lived pain, the disconnection with his own thoughts; Loki had felt it all before, when he was with the Other. The only difference was the feeling of facing a butcher in the asteroid where they kept him, against the distinct steady hand of a healer in surgery. That didn’t lessen how empty he was after the intrussion.

Empty-handed too, since Stark had kicked his scepter out of the window as soon as Loki’s lax hands had dropped it. He was powerless again.

“What is this?” Loki turned to look at what Stark was doing.

He looked so human and vulnerable again, quite small without his wings, like a curious child. A curious child with Loki’s soul tangled in his hands. The soul was green as his magic, but sickeningly pale. What Stark was examining with a frown was a purple thread that was knotted around Loki’s essence.

“I don’t like people touching my stuff; someone needs to learn a lesson.”

Stark plucked the offending string. It hurt. Loki felt the purple thread strangling him until it snapped and Stark had a soul-thread in each hand. Loki felt lightheaded, but the relief didn’t last: Stark examined both and put Loki’s string to his chest. The same power that had absorbed Loki’s Seidr took the thread in. Loki had merely changed collars; his only hope now was that Stark would be easier to overpower.

Stark didn’t share his gloomy thoughts; he winded the purple soul-string around his arm and pulled. Loki could easily see the vine growing in the human’s arms, like veins sucking his blood. It would destroy Stark from the inside, and Loki’s soul with him. If he kept pulling, Thanos would notice and vaporize Stark and Loki right after. Loki had to stop Stark! He had to act now.

 Stark pulled Loki’s leash, but instead of pain, only numbness came.

“Awww, and there I thought most of your devotion to the guy on the other end was a forced thing, looks like we have a lapdog,” Stark mocked.

Loki fought the leash, he wasn’t a pet, he wasn’t a loyal pet, he wasn’t Thanos’ loyal. No! The leash gave him a little room while Stark examined him closely. The coil around Stark’s arm was tightening, Thanos had _noticed._ He was going to _come._

“Fear, yeah, of course I was right,” Stark said with approval in his eyes.

What happened next should have scared Loki, but he was still partially numb. The portal lighted up, bringing the bane of Loki’s last months of existence. Thanos stood there, looking at the chaos that the first wave of chitauri was causing and searching in his ridiculous flying throne.

Stark hummed calmly and walked back through the way he had come in. The metal suit didn’t engulf him, but the short leash he had on Loki compelled the god to walk close behind. Stark was mad, maybe even madder, because he shouted at Thanos.

“Hey, Purple Haze!” he waved from the platform and pulled the thread for emphasis.

Thanos took notice, of course, but his eyes were on Loki when he floated in their direction.

“I see you-” Thanos thundered.

“No. Eyes here, Multichin. Loki is mine; you talk to me. In fact, you don’t talk. Because I only brought you here because I am a good man and you have a right to know why I’m going to kill you. The reason is ‘nobody touches my stuff’ which includes my tower, my city, my planet and this recent acquisition here.” Stark pointed at Loki over his shoulder with his thumb.

Loki was sure that Stark was going to die, it was almost a pity, to lose such a bold and interesting creature; but Loki was wrong. Thanos, lover of speeches, didn’t have time to even say ‘puny human’ before the Midgardian lit the purple soul-thread with some kind of flame. The thread burnt fast as a wick and soon it was licking Thanos’ insides. Only the agony and the flames in eyes, ears, and joints were visible.

Thanos fell limply from his throne and from the tower; an empty body, not dead, but with ashes instead of a soul.

“Tony!” Came a worried voice from not far away. “What was that?”

Stark took in his surroundings, not even acknowledging Loki, and lay on the ground. Not a second later, Stark had the illusion of wounds and a battered iron suit on him. Captain America came just in time to see Stark sitting up and coughing.

“Fuck if I know. The thing waltzed in, had a chat with Thor’s brother and dropped dead.”

“Where is Loki? What happened to you?” Stark took the offered hand to stand up on wobbly legs.

“He landed a hit and left. Whatever happened must have pissed him off.”

“Guys, I can close the portal,” the tiny voice came from the device on the captain’s ear.

“Wait. They are retreating. Let as many as possible leave before you close it, new orders, avoid confrontation.”

The man left Stark alone in favor of checking if his other comrades were safe. Stark dropped his concealments and illusions. He walked to the bar, still pulling the leash.

“This is much better than calling my hordes and blowing my cover, don’t you think? And it will only get nicer and nicer.”

Loki had wondered multiple times during his time after the void if there was something worse than Thanos in all the galaxies, someone more twisted. He wondered if he could have fallen lower. Well, he looked into Stark’s wicked eyes, he was about to find out.


End file.
